Fertility_puzzle.pdf (227.54 kB)
An explanation of the positive correlation between fertility and female employment across Western European countries
preprint
posted on 2006-05-24, 16:18 authored by Tomas KoegelRecent literature shows the puzzling result of a positive and significant cross-country correlation between the total fertility rate and the female labour force participation rate across Western European countries. The present paper shows that this cross-country correlation becomes negative and significant, once one corrects the total fertility rate for a distortion, caused by an increasing age of childbearing, and controls in cross-country regressions for purchased child care use and female long-term unemployment. This result survives an empirical analysis in which the female labour force participation rate is treated as an endogenous variable.
History
School
- Business and Economics
Department
- Economics
Pages
200671 bytesPublication date
2006Notes
This working paper is also available at: http://ideas.repec.org/p/lbo/lbowps/2006_11.html.Language
- en